In many state, local and federal jurisdictions, the purchase of a motor vehicle, trailer or marine equipment (e.g., boat) requires the registration and/or titling (hereafter, "registration and titling") of that item with a governmental body as a means to track ownership and usage. In certain jurisdictions consumer purchasers of these items may authorize an agent to perform the registration and titling with the correct governmental body. The agent may be the selling merchant (e.g., automobile dealer), a title or tag agency, or even a notary public. In certain jurisdictions, the consumer purchaser must pay fees and/or taxes to register and title the property in the jurisdiction. Typical forms of taxes include a sales tax based on a percentage of the purchase price or an ad valorem tax. If an agent is responsible for performing the registration and titling, the agent will typically collect the appropriate amount of fees and taxes from the consumer purchaser, and will have the consumer purchaser fill out and sign any accompanying paperwork. The agent then forwards the paperwork and remits the monies to the governmental body. The governmental body has laws and regulations which specify a time frame within which all paperwork, fees and taxes must be received by the governmental body, such as twenty or thirty days after the sale date. If the consumer purchaser has entrusted the registration and titling to an agent, it is the agent's responsibility to timely comply with the laws and regulations.
Such agents sometimes fail to timely forward the registration and titling paperwork and corresponding fees and taxes to the governmental body. Occasionally, the agents completely fail to ever forward the paperwork, fees and taxes and abscond with the fees and taxes. In other instances, errors are made by the agents in remitting the appropriate amount of fees and taxes. All of the above scenarios can subject the governmental body to additional expenses due to (a) increased borrowing costs related to sums not collected or collected late, (b) costs of repeating the registration and titling process for incorrectly submitted paperwork, and (c) administrative and legal costs of detecting noncompliance and instituting collection proceedings against noncompliant agents.
Governmental bodies typically monitor compliance of agents with the laws and regulations by performing periodic checks of documents submitted by the agents, or by performing follow-up checks in response to a complaint from a consumer purchaser. Since the governmental body has no advance notice of a consumer purchase, it therefore does not know when to expect registration and titling paperwork to arrive. The compliance efforts currently in use are therefore always in reaction to prior events and are usually too little and too late to work efficiently.
Currently, communications channels exist between lenders and certain state department of motor vehicle agencies (DMVs) to allow the lenders to electronically perfect the lenders' security interest in motor vehicles. Upon origination of a loan for a motor vehicle, the lender sends a "paperless lien" to the state DMV which includes the vehicle's vehicle identification number (VIN). Some state DMVs also process "paperless titles." Upon purchase of a new, previously untitled and unregistered vehicle by a consumer, an electronic file transfer is made from the motor vehicle manufacturer to the state DMV in the form of a paperless title. The paperless title employs the VIN for vehicle identification. The paperless title reduces the preparation of a physical manufacturer's statement of origin and avoids the necessity to issue a subsequent certificate of title in the name of the consumer purchaser.
Despite the existing compliance methods of motor vehicle departments and known forms of communication between lenders, motor vehicle manufacturers and governmental computers, there is still a need for a system which can monitor compliance of property transaction agents with government laws and regulations in a more timely and efficient manner. The present invention fills this need by providing an automated computerized system for maintaining a database of property loan records provided by loan financiers, and employing information from the loan financier's records to check property registration submissions received by a governmental entity to detect missing, late or erroneous property registrations.